


Men Like Them

by Sonora



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: Stacker's not exactly sure when he falls in love with Herc.  He's just pretty sure the Aussie doesn't love him back.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time it happens, Stacker knows it’s a mistake.

Not that it isn’t intentional, them falling into bed together. Stacker doesn’t exactly have one of those kinks for enlisted blokes. Or gingers. But it’s a shitty corner of Afghanistan they’re stuck in and Sergeant Hansen’s foul mouth and fast smile is the only thing keeping his junior-officer arse sane right now. Doesn’t hurt that the man is fucking hot.

(That’s all it is. Stacker keeps telling himself that. It’s _all it is_.)

And yeah, he knows Sergeant Hansen is married. Everyone does. Bloke’s got new photos of his son on his phone every day it seems like, a sturdy little kid of maybe four with banged-up knees and his father’s serious eyes. Herc has a cheap gold wedding ring he never takes off, not even on missions, not even when the US Army SOCOM colonel who runs their little corner of Hell orders him to. 

(A ring he doesn’t take off when he finally corners his dumb on-loan-to-the-Yank-Army RAF O-2 ass in the squadron morale tent while the rest of the lads are off on a mission, lifts his chin, grins, and kisses him so hard Stacker can hardly stand when he’s done. “Thought I’ve seen you oogling me in the showers,” Hansen chuckles. “So why don’t you shut up and fuck me then?” Stacker challenges.)

“What happens out here stays out here,” Hansen tells him as he’s zipping his flight suit back up. “Don’t feel bad about it. Angie knows how it is.”

“Your wife knows you fuck men on deployments?” Stacker asks from the dusty sofa, a little confused, still a little stunned. He can still feel Hansen’s dick in him; dear lord that man can fuck.

Hansen’s only five years older than him, but out here, that’s an eternity. The look the sergeant gives him, the question in those piercing blue eyes, makes Stacker feel very young. “Only on deployments.”

The flight suit doesn’t do a thing for his arse.

Stacker kind of wants to strip it off him again. 

So he does.

+++++

It’s a terrible idea, fucking a bloke you’re stationed with. It’s only a few months, which is not nearly enough time to enjoy it, but more than enough time to learn all sorts of inconvenient things, like how his little brother’s nickname for him is ‘Le or how his son Charlie likes stories about robots the most. There’s no privacy in the military, or shame, or decency, so intimacy is measured in other ways.

(Or maybe that’s just them. Hansen doesn’t talk much, and Stacker never knows what to say about himself, his mess of a family, where he’s been. Hansen is one of those blokes who enlisted to get the fuck away from home and found out he was really good at blowing shit up for God and country and whatnot, so they’ve already too much in common.)

“Look me up, if you’re ever in Sydney,” Hansen offers the morning before he gets on the rotator back to Darwin. Stacker got himself taken off the flying schedule for the day, his tent mate’s out on patrol, and his bunk is both too small and too hard, but Hansen’s right there. Naked beside him. So things are pretty much perfect. “And stay in touch, yeah?”

Stacker hopes it’s not visible on his face, how his heart jumps a bit at hearing those words. “Let’s not make this more than it is,” he replies, feigning a yawn. “Even if you are a really good shag.”

Hansen smiles one of those rare, slow smiles. “I think you’re gonna be okay after all, Lieutenant.”

“Maybe we’ll be stationed together again.”

That smile gets a little deeper.

Yeah. 

Stacker’s in trouble.

+++++

They don’t fly the same airframe. They don’t serve in the same Air Force. They’re not on the same side of the planet, most of the time.

They stay in touch. As Stacker finally gets the rest of his flight training done and moves on up to the Eurofighter. As Hansen gets promoted and then demoted and then promoted again even faster. 

It’s not the same. Facebook, texting, chatting via Skype.

(Even if, every once in a while, Hansen’s chat sessions start out with something like...)

_What would you do to me, if I was there right now? Right in front of you with my cock out?_

“Dear lord,” Stacker mutters, fumbling to get his phone away before...

“This your guy?” Tamsin asks with a big grin.

Well. Before the inevitable happens.

Stacker loves his sister, and her girlfriend can be a riot most of the time. But the last thing he needs after their third carton of post-Christmas eggnog is Herc Hansen texting him perverted things. Because drunk military lesbians and dirty-minded military bisexual men are probably not the best combination.

(Herc would love Tam. Stacker absolutely does not think about this. He does not think about how Herc Hansen would fit in with his family.)

“He’s not mine. He’s married.”

“So?” Tamsin huffs, and plops down next to him in front of the crackling fireplace. It’s over thirty degrees here in California right now, so they’ve got the air-con in her little house turned as far down as it’ll go. Seems a bit silly, but it’s not dreary London, so he’s not complaining. “Luna showed me some photos. He’s hot. You should go for it.”

“We’re mates,” Stacker says. It’s the first time in a year he’s thought of Herc as a friend, and as the words leave his mouth, he realizes how much of a lie it is for him. How true it probably is for Herc. “Nothing else.”

“Friends with benefits, okay,” his sister’s lover says in that insufferably flippant Yank way of hers, and pats him on the shoulder, standing up again, a little unsteady on her feet. He offers her a hand but she just winks, sashaying off.

_Stacks?_

_Unavoidable interruptions,_ he types back. _Sister’s girlfriend._

_You’re in America, right?_

When did they learn this much about each other? It was just supposed to be sex - Herc’s not really available for anything else. _Yes_.

_Don’t suppose you’re headed back to the sandbox any time soon._

_They sending you back out?_

_Next week. You can imagine where._

Not like Herc’s going to tell him over an unsecure channel.

But it still makes Stacker feel warm inside.

_On a two week pass, mate. Have another four months after the holiday_

There’s a long pause, almost ten minutes, which gives Stacker just enough time to go to the kitchen, get himself an unadvised shot of whiskey, contemplate this weird feeling spreading his gut, and almost drop his phone again as it dings loud in the evening quiet of Tamsin’s kitchen.

_Sorry. Sprog’s at it again. Sandbox isn’t that big. See you out there._

Stacker grins. _Should be fun._

+++++

It is fun.

It’s also torture.

Because Sergeant Hansen shows up at his quarters door in Bagram in worn-out civvies, a six pack in hand and an all too familiar look in his eyes. “The seppos tell me you lot have a rec room in this barracks. With a Playstation.”

Stacker leans on his doorjamb (which is splintery plywood but that’s high class in this place) and hopes he’s not giving himself away. His heart is doing that weird flipping thing again. “Yeah, but the only games they’ve got are Grand Theft Auto titles.”

“Officers,” Hansen replies and thrusts the booze at him. “C’mon. Let’s go kill some drug dealers.”

“Thought you were gonna say hookers there for a moment.”

“I might have been at that.”

Technically, Herc isn’t supposed to be in here.

Stacker doesn’t care. And neither does anybody else. This is a pilots’ barracks, first and foremost.

Nobody bothers them in the rec room.

And nobody bothers them in bed, either. Not even when Stacker’s roommate, an American F-16 bloke, walks in on the sight of the two of them kissing. He just rolls his eyes and tells them to hang a _goddamn sock on the door next time good lord I see your crazy British ass naked enough as it is_ and they’re alone.

Herc roars with laughter after the door shuts.

Stacker missed that laugh so much it hurts.

Yeah.

He’s fucked.

+++++

In a different world, a sane world, they might have made it work. Might have drifted apart. Might have let the sex die and hang onto the friendship. Herc might have gone back fully to Angie, or Stacker ruin everything by letting loose his feelings in some moment of weakness.

They’ll never know.

Because Trespasser comes. Luna dies. Tamsin’s squadron is moved to Darwin and Stacker’s wing to Alice Springs. Back-up for the southern Pacific, which is useless, because it’s a B-1 that ends up stopping Scissure, and nothing normal is left in this world.

Stacker takes it on himself to let Herc know about the blast radius. 

Angela’s gone.

He doesn’t have to say it. Just sits there across the aisle from his old war-fuck-buddy in the makeshift cot farm set up in the base gym for military members, and doesn’t say a word.

Charlie’s crying against Herc’s side. (Technically, that boy shouldn’t be here either, but Herc never much cared about following the rules and nobody’s going to court-martial somebody for saving his son and ten of his classmates. Even if he did do it by stealing one of the helicopters out on the apron for the next week’s air show. That’s cancelled now. Everything is cancelled now.)

There is nothing Stacker would like more than to comfort Herc. But it’s not his place, and never will be.

Instead, he just lays a hand on Herc’s knee and Herc squeezes his hand tight.

“UN’s got a plan in the works,” Stacker says, and he shouldn’t be saying this because it’s not official yet, but Tamsin doesn’t much care for the rules either and has plenty of friends at Lockheed Martin and knows what the hell is going on. “It’s a quite mad, in my opinion, but…”

Herc nods. “Sign me up.”

+++++

It rains in Japan.

It rains far too much in Japan.

As much as Stacker would have liked to be partnered with Herc, it hadn’t worked out that way. Tamsin came with him, and Scott came with Herc, and after the drift tests in the sims, Stacker’s grateful. 

He’s not sure if he could have held his feelings back.

He could admit to it now, right?

No Angie anymore.

Which is exactly why he hasn’t said anything.

Which is why he made damn sure he wasn’t stationed out in Hong Kong, where Lucky Seven is.

Which is why he’s standing on a waterslick train platform, knees and throat still hurting a bit from the cruise club he’s just left (even Tokyo doesn’t have much of a gay scene, but a bloke can find it when he’s motivated), turning his phone over in his hand. 

He could phone, couldn’t he? Text? Just… anything, to settle this roil in his stomach.

But it won’t help.

He’s not even sure what he’d say. 

Right now, if he starts talking, he’ll say everything. So instead, Stacker catches the last train back down to Yokohama and promises himself the next time he sees Herc, he won’t fuck the man.

+++++

The next time he sees Herc, it’s six months later, and while they don’t have sex, that’s only because Stacker’s practically covered in electrodes and needles and tubes.

“You look like shit,” Hercules says.

It’s so _him_ , Stacker could cry. 

“They tell me you and Scott are the only ones who aren’t showing high exposure levels,” Stacker wheezes back. “That’s good, with your boy.”

“Who knew that an improperly designed conn-pod would actually offer some additional shielding?” Here replies, and scoots his chair closer to the bed, away from the curtain, the side of the room, where the other half of Coyote Tango’s command crew is in a medically induced coma. “You just had to be the hero, eh?”

He’s smiling. It’s a fragile, worried thing, and in that moment, Stacker can almost feel the words on his lips. That Onibaba fight was brutal, being confined to a hospital bed while they run more tests to see how advanced his brain cancer is is worse. The PPDC core leadership is dead, bodies buried under the high rise in Shiodome where this year’s strategic planning conference was being held. 

The kaijuu couldn’t have planned a more devastating incursion if they could actually _plan_. 

It’s times like then when a bloke starts thinking about what he really wants out of life.

But Stacker knows damn well he can’t have what he wants.

“They’ll promote you,” he says. “We can’t have this kind of leadership vacuum.”

“I’m an enlisted bogan from the interior of a backwards little continent,” Herc says, and shrugs. “If they give command to anybody, it’ll be you. So you should survive for that, I reckon.”

Stacker doesn’t bother pointing out his background is almost as rough as Herc’s. Herc never bothered to hide himself though, never edited, never compromised. “Doubtful,” he grunts.

“Whatever,” Herc replies carelessly, and brandishes his backpack. “I borrowed Chuck’s Wii. Fancy a game of Mario Kart?”

Video games aren’t really what Stacker wants to do right now, but it takes hi mind off his sister-in-law who’s dying ten feet away from him, and god help him, he needs that right now.

+++++

After he gets out of hospital, he ends up being offered the command billet. Marshall of the PPDC.

He takes it.

He also take the little girl he saved - her family’s apparently shunning her. As if it’s her fault for being born with the wrong set of chromosomes.

Neither of them have much of anywhere else to go, he reasons. Nobody else to be with. Might as well take care of each other.

+++++

“You can’t court-martial that boy, Stacks.”

“The hell else am I supposed to do with him? He’s unfit to go back in a conn-pod, the whole thing is a PR nightmare…”

“Man I knew wouldn’t have cared about any of that. The Stacker Pentecost I remember would have some fucking sympathy.”

There’s an acidic tone in Herc’s rebuke, harsher for being delivered with both of them naked, in bed, sweat still drying.

 _Good for a fuck and nothing else_ , Stacker thinks to himself, knowing he’s being a bitter asshole and not caring. 

But what else is he supposed to feel right now? The last three days have been pure hell. The younger Becket’s on suicide watch, the elder’s body is nowhere to be found, the Gages are on literal guarded lock-down in Seattle on his orders to prevent them from saying something to the press, because the press… the press is going mad over this. 

First jaeger they’ve lost in combat. The new Marshall of the PPDC less than a year on the job. A boy who was barely out of high school in the conn-pod. 

It’s a fucking disaster, and while Stacker might understand what it feels like to see your co-pilot die, he’s not a Ranger anymore, is he? He’s the fucking Marshall and his co-pilot’s gone and the only other person on this earth he trusts, loves, is bitching him out in bed.

Good enough for a fuck. Not good enough for some goddamn empathy. 

_Who else am I supposed to talk to, if not you? I need your help. I need you._

Stacker doesn’t say it.

“I have other things to consider.”

Herc looks at him, that old sergeant judgment in his eyes, and rolls out of bed. “Tell yourself that all you want, but we both know it’s bullshit.” Stretching a little, still naked, he goes over to where he left that bottle of scotch he brought with him. “You don’t have to beat Raleigh into the ground to prove a point. Not to the civvies, and sure as fuck not to us.”

“You barely know the boy, Herc. Don’t tell me what to do with one of my Rangers.”

“Funny,” Herc replies, downing his tumbler and setting it back down again. He has both hands spread against the granite of the countertop, every inch of his scarred body on display. He has more muscle than he did back in the Sandbox, more tattoos, more freckles, things Stacker normally just wants to lick. It’s almost threatening in this moment, though, the quiet strength that lurks in this man on display. “Because I thought you pulled me up here from Sydney for operational reasons. Or did you just want to get laid?”

“Watch it, Ranger,” Stacker growls, sitting up fully. “I’ll not have…”

“Oh, stop it,” Herc snorts. “We both know how this goes.” He pours himself another drink. “I’m not trying to compare who’s got the bigger dick here.”

“So what, you just fuck me to get me to listen to you? Is that how this goes?” Stacker asks, anger rising in him now. 

“What else would we be doing here?” Herc replies levelly. He rolls his eyes, and takes another sip of scotch. 

“You need to get yourself in line…”

“Ahh, fuck this.” Herc slams his glass down. “I don’t need to take this shit from you,” he snaps, and goes to retrieve his worn-out jeans, which got banished to the back of a chair two hours ago. “I’m going to go see Becket and then I’m getting on the next plane home.” 

“I’ve had just about enough of your insubordination, Hercules! I asked you here to help deal with this situation, and by god…”

“The fuck are you on about?” Here snaps, cutting him off completely. “I don’t get this, Stacker. I know I’m your subordinate now, but that doesn’t change the past.” His green eyes shift, like he’s looking for something, and for a crazy moment, Stacker wonders if it might be… “You’re my oldest friend. Don’t want to lose that to some general-officer ego trip.”

_Friend_. 

That’s all they’ve got, these stolen little moments their only intimate connection. And no matter how much he wishes otherwise, Herc doesn’t want anything more. Stacker’s not even sure if Herc considers himself gay, or if he’s one those homophobic pricks who pretends like labels don’t matter, so he can keep lying to himself and dating women. Lord knows him and Scott make the tabloids enough for the entire Corps.

But before Stacker can say anything, he can feel the sticky-sick sensation of blood running out of his nose. “Fucking hell,” he mutters, and throws off the covers. “Not again.”

Herc’s there with the tissue box. “This a common thing now?”

Stacker sighs. Even with Herc, he’s not sure he’s ready to talk about this. “I’m not on an ego trip. But these last couple of days, I feel like I’m getting pecked to death by vultures. Fucking UN.”

Herc nods. “What am I here to do?”

“Run interference. Be your charming, respectfully insulting NCO self with the civilians until I can figure out how to deal with Raleigh.”

“Sounds fun,” Herc says with one of those shit-eating grins that were far less rare a decade ago, one that makes Stacker ache inside. “But you are going to tell me about these nosebleeds.”

“Cancer,” Stacker says quietly. 

Because if he doesn’t talk about to Herc, who will he?

+++++

He tries not to be bitter.

Tries not to think about things he never got to have. Retirement. An easy job with British Airways. Quiet little house, somewhere close enough for that airport job, or far enough for long personal holidays - maybe Hawaii or Singapore or the Bahamas or the Whitsundays.

But there Stacker goes thinking about Herc again.

Because it always comes back to Herc.

He loves Mako. He loves the people he commands. He even loves the world they defend, in some kind of abstract way that’s difficult to quantify. But they aren’t what get him out of bed in the morning. They aren’t what he’d like to beat the cancer for.

Lately, Stacker’s been having this dream, this stupid reoccurring dream, where Pitfall rises off the planning table into victorious reality and under that stopped clock, Herc kisses him and tells him _now we finally get our chance_.

Stacker’s learned to live with that dull pain, that weak sensation in his palms, whenever he thinks about his ginger Aussie.

But that’s just the problem, isn’t it?

He’s dying. The whole world’s dying.

Maybe he could take the risk and say something to Herc, but he doesn’t think he’d survive a rejection.

Better to just bear up under it, and not worry about the things he can’t have.

About the unfairness of this all.

+++++

“We’ll be out to Hong Kong as soon as we can get the ‘Dome here shut down,” Herc tells him via official telecon, two weeks before Christmas, 2024. “You can imagine how the country feels about losing her last three jaegers, but we’re making it work, sir.”

Later, via Skype, Herc’s got the whiskey out again and he doesn’t look good. “It’s a bloody mess,” he says. “We’ve had protestors outside the gate every day since the shut-down announcement was made. It’s starting to get violent. People are scared, Stacks, everyone’s scared.”

Stacker knows better than to ask what he really wants to ask. “How’s your boy holding up?” he says instead.

Herc sighs. “Spending every minute buried in Striker’s guts. Like he’s saying goodbye to her.”

“If anybody’s going to make it through this, it’ll be you two,” Stacker tells him. “Stubborn bastards, the both of you.”

The image pixelates, but the signal doesn’t drop. Herc shakes his head, and sips at his drink. He’s not staring at the screen or the camera anymore - he’s looking at some point on the wall behind, or nothing at all, maybe. “You ever think about what life would be like if these fucking kaiju hadn’t shown up?”

“Not worth the time, my friend.”

“I wonder about Angie and me. If we’d still be together. If Chuck would still hate me…”

“He doesn’t hate you, Herc.”

“It’s a strange thing, going this long without,” and Herc waves his hand. “You know, affection, or…”

Stacker can hear his heart in his ears. “What are you thinking, Herc? Where is this coming from?”

“I dunno,” Herc says, and shrugs. “I’m almost forty-five, Stacks. I should be bloody retired and in a cushy airline job right now, not putting myself through this fucking hell.”

“I’ve had the same though myself.”

“Chuck should be in college.”

It’s said with such finality, such pain, that it cuts right through Stacker. He’s gotten fairly used to other people’s pain, but he never hears anything like this from Herc. “Chuck’s where he belongs. One of the reasons I trust Striker so much is I know you’d do anything to keep him safe. You’ll always kill whatever you go up against for that boy of yours.”

Herc doesn’t say anything for a while. Then he just sighs. “You remember Afghanistan?”

“Yeah. Fucked up place.”

“Wasn’t so bad,” Herc says. “At least things made sense there.”

Stacker can almost feel it on his tongue, the thing he’s always wanted to say but never been able to. It almost comes out, because Herc sounds so forlorn, so haunted, and all Stacker’s ever wanted to give him was some happiness. But just then, the door bangs open and Max starts barking and Chuck’s back.

It’s never been just them.

Never was supposed to be, maybe. Soldiers - or airmen - never get to live their lives for themselves. That’s not the point of men like them.

Stacker goes back to the business of running his war, planning his last stand, trying to keep his failing body going. Until Mutavore hits, and they run out of time.


	2. Chapter 2

Herc does what he has to do for the cameras. He’s always professional that way. Stays calm, makes sure he’s seen helping direct the clean-up response, keeps Chuck from going too far off script.

Thing about Chuck, though, is that he’s the baby rattlesnake in the Hansen family. Can’t control his venom. Herc, on the other hand, knows exactly when and where to lay it down.

He waits until they’re in Hong Kong, in person, behind closed doors, before he says anything.

“That’s my city, Stacks. My country, back there, left totally defenseless by your stupid fucking Security Council! If you’ve lost your edge, if you can’t keep in front of these fuckhead bureaucrats with this fucking stupid wall program, you need to step the fuck down!”

Stacker just flops down in his desk chair, flipping on the built-in heating pad. The maintenance chemo they have him on is a bitch, the painkillers take most of the edge off, but he still aches everywhere these days. “You’re out of line, Ranger,” he says, tired.

“Hundreds of _thousands_ of people!” Herc snaps, pacing now. “We all told you to shut that shit down years ago! All of us! Everyone from ’15 told you to fight back and you didn’t and you’ve fucked the whole fucking planet!”

“They threatened to pull funding from the entire program back in 2022…”

“It was a fucking bluff, and you know it!”

Stacker tries to glare at him. He’s got a glare that works on most people, but he just can’t pull it out with Herc. He can’t. And Herc knows it, staring back at him with fire in his eyes. “Does any of this shit matter to you, Stacks?” he growls, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Or is just too hard right now?”

And these are the moments that remind Stacker how things are.

Herc couldn’t have struck a worse blow had he used a literal bag of bricks. Because there is nothing Stacker can say to that - he’d been three weeks into his first round of aggressive chemo, back when that shit first came up. He’d spent so much time throwing up in his New York hotel room during the debate that he’d missed his own time slot in front of the UNSC.

They probably still would have authorized the Wall of Life anyway. 

Maybe he is too busy dying to stop the planet from dying itself.

And just then, a massive bolt of pain decides to rip its way down his spine, and he can’t stop the groan. Fuck, did he forget his oxycodone this morning? He did. Dammit, got all screwed up with the time change and the Jumphawk and that Raleigh Becket, who hadn’t said a word the entire flight back. He fumbles for the thermos Mako stashes under his desk for him. Green tea; she says it’s good for him to have tea, except this is yesterday’s and it’s cold now.

Herc shifts, softens a bit, some of the rage bleeding out of his piercing blue eyes. “Stacker, look, I’m… I spent the night picking’ up bodies before we flew out here. I’m not in the best mood.”

Stacker waves him off, popping the lid off one of his pill cases and downing this morning’s dose. He closes his eyes, breathes out very slowly. Considers what to say. 

Not what he’d like to, he decides, even though he’s not sure what that is.

“Are you with me on Pitfall or not?”

Herc shrugs. “Jesus, one last chance to kill these motherfuckers? What do you think?”

Stacker nods, and takes another deep breath. The pain’s mostly subsiding, but even at that, he imagines he can feel it. The cancer that’s destroying his bone marrow, eating his liver. Aggressive early treatment might have held it at bay, but after the UN debacle, what was he supposed to do?

Yeah.

These are the times he knows Herc doesn’t give a shit about him.

Comments like that.

He’d do anything to spare Herc this kind of pain. Even if he’s probably going to get them all killed in this Pitfall madness.

“Stacker?”

“I need to talk to my K-Science department,” he says, “but honestly, they’re driving me mad. Can’t follow a bloody thing they’re saying”

Herc nods. “Then let’s go.”

+++++

There are no apologies. 

This is normal. Especially for pilots; something in their DNA makes them unable to give voice to such admissions. It doesn’t make them blind, though, and Stacker can feel just how sorry Herc is.

Later that night.

When he comes by. No liquor this time, which is a bit of an aberration, but then, even after almost two decades of friendship, Stacker still doesn’t quite have his man figured out.

Stacker doesn’t quite let Herc in, though. Not right away. Leans on the doorjamb, blocks his entrance. “I don’t know how much I’m up for. Doesn’t show, but I bruise terribly easy right now.”

Herc doesn’t so much as blink. “I can be gentle,” he says and, in an uncharacteristic show, rubs the back of his knuckles down Stacker’s cheek, against the stubble he still needs to shave off. “Or I can go.”

 _You should go,_ Stacker wants to say. It’s the truth; Drift trials in the morning, no time to waste on personal activities, no energy left to give to a man who gives him nothing back.

But that ache still lives in him, and he can’t help but nod.

There is no sweetness between them. Or at least, there usually isn’t. But Herc doesn’t push for anything tonight, doesn’t push Stcker anywhere, except back on the bed and then, only gently. 

“You really think this nuke’s gonna work?” the Aussie asks, straddling Stacker’s thighs as he undoes his tie.

Bracing himself up on his elbows, Stacker just stares at him. “I think you’ll make it happen.”

Herc doesn’t smile, but he does lean down. “Never rightly understood why you trust me like you do,” he murmurs, hot breath caressing the shell of Stacker’s ear. His fingers start working on the buttons of Stacker’s travel-creased oxford.

“Love’s a good motivator,” Stacker replies without thinking.

It gets Herc pulling back, a question on his face. “You, uhh…”

“Chuck,” Stacker says hastily, hoping it’ll sound like a clarification instead of a dodge. Times like this, he’s grateful he can’t blush.

Herc just nods, eyes slightly unfocused, but starts back on Stacker’s shirt. “Reckon the idea’s to make sure the sprogs have a world after this, eh?”

“One of the reasons I don’t want Mako in a jaeger.”

“She’s gonna get there anyway and you know it,” Herc says. It sounds light but his expression is still serious. “But enough of that shit. Haven’t seen you in a while, have I?”

Stacker hooks a hand into the back pocket of Herc’s ancient khakis. “No, you haven’t. Not since we closed down the Icebox together.”

Letting himself be pulled in closer, Herc gets Stacker’s shirt all the way open, and runs those same soft knuckles down his chest, rough on his smooth, sensitive skin. Not all of his hair grew back, after that chemo; head yes, body no. “Missed you,” Herc says.

Stacker snorts. “Don’t tell me you’re getting all nostalgic on me again.”

“I won’t say it, then,” Herc replies, and actually kisses him.

They don’t do this sort of thing.

They also don’t do what they do next, which involves spooning and sleeping but no actual sex. 

Or at least, Stacker thinks it involves sleeping. He falls asleep with Herc still there, with Herc wrapped around him, or at least, he thinks he does. The bed’s soft and the room’s cool and Herc might as well be a roaring fire, with all the body heat he puts out. Feels good. Feels familiar. Like they’ve done this every night of their lives; like this is just the way it is. But Herc’s not there when he wakes up.

“Needed to get Max out, let Chuck sleep in a bit,” Herc says by way of explanation when Stacker catches him after the trials, up on the catwalks around where Lucky is parked.

Shouldn’t feel as dismissive as it no doubt is. 

Stacker shrugs. “I’ve never asked. Does Chuck…”

“Of course he knows,” Herc says. “Didn’t you know about who Tamsin slept with?”

“She never slept with anybody, after Luna,” Stacker replies, as simply as he can. “Considered herself a widow, such as it was.”

Herc snorts. “It’s less romantic when you live it.”

“You miss her, don’t you?”

It’s a hard question to ask; Stacker’s never pushed it. He sometimes thinks about that conversation they had a while back, where Herc talked about all the things he regretted, things he couldn’t change in this fucked-up world of theirs, that loss of, well. 

“You need to let Mako pilot,” Herc replies.

Stacker sighs. 

Of course he’s changing the subject.

+++++

The drive suit room is empty but for them.

Thank god the techs are out. Thank god they had the sense to flee when Herc stormed in. But unlike a couple of days ago, he seems more panicked than pissed right now.

“I can still fight, Stacks. I can go out there. I can do this…”

Stacker so badly wants to touch him. Pull him in and kiss him. Tell him what he feels. Tell him everything. 

But that’s only what Stacker needs; it’s not something he can do to this man. Not right now. Not when he’s about to dump the entire PPDC on him, the defense of the planet. Can’t be selfish.

He has to just bear it. Like he always has.

Last man standing. A fixed point. Nothing else matters. He doesn’t matter. Herc doesn’t matter. What they represent, what they do, is far more important than who they are.

“Broken collarbone, Herc. No you can’t.”

His oldest friend’s mouth is set in a thin line. “Don’t do this just because you want to die in a jaeger. Not my jaeger, and not my co-pilot…”

“I’ll not get your boy killed, Herc.”

“You better fuckin’ not.”

“This isn’t about ego,” Stacker says, and shifts, turning into him. “This isn’t about anything other than the mission. So you run this from LOCCENT for me and let me worry about the details, you understand me, Ranger?”

Herc just stares at him. “It’s a broken collarbone.”

Stacker shakes his head, and steps into Herc’s space, black drive suit armor pinching in all the wrong places, making his body ache, but he can get through this. “Can’t risk it.”

“Stacker…”

He lays a gloved hand on Herc’s chest, backing him slowly into a corner. “I’d do anything for you, Hercules. I don’t know if you realize that, but I would.”

“Then let me go out there.” Herc falls back against the wall, but doesn’t stop staring at him. Those stupid handsome blue eyes of his. “Your brain won’t handle the strain.”

“I can do a few hours.”

“This is insane.”

“I’m dying. You’re not.”

“Chuck…”

“She’s got escape pods.”

“So fuckin’…”

“Herc, stop,” Stacker orders quietly, and runs his hand up to cup the other man’s cheek. “Stop.”

“That an order?”

 _You’re the best thing in my life._ “From one friend to another.” _Let me give you this._ “This is what we’re doing. This is how this happens.”

Herc doesn’t flinch. “You’re going down there to die.”

“That was always going to happen.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I,” Stacker says, and indulging himself for just a moment, leans in for a kiss. It’s soft and slow and over far too soon. A moment, he gives himself. Enough to feel Herc, but not enough to feel Herc pull away. “But this is what we do, isn’t it?”

Herc catches his hand before he can pull away completely. Squeezes it. Lets go.

Stacker feels like his heart is breaking.

At the same time, there’s something incredibly freeing about it. The last time he touches Hercules Hansen.

He’ll never do this again.

He’ll never have to regret this again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hashtag #sadboys

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt on the kink meme I remember from way back, and it's been rolling around on my computer forever. I promise I'll finish my open stories, including this one! I'm not sure how to end this particular story right now, though. 
> 
> (Things have been both stressful and sad around here this fall so writing has been super difficult, ugh. But the disassociation thing seems mostly better.)


End file.
